The International 5’s Main Event will kick off in a few hours and the first day will have plenty of drama as four teams are bound to fail their quest for the Aegis and will watch the rest of the tournament from the sidelines.

Zhang “Mu” Pan has numerous achievements credited to his name, but none are as significant as his last year’s championship title at The International 4. In Mu’s TI5 player profile, the defending champion discloses the important traits needed by players and teams in order to become successful and talks about this year’s hopes for another title.

MVP.Hot6’s Lee “Heen” Seung Gon is one of the Korean rising stars that has graced the Dota 2 scene in recent years. Big in esports in general, Korea has recently become more invested in Dota 2. In his TI5 player profile, Heen opens up about the impact his military service had on his professional gaming career and the opportunities that came his way afterwards.

Team Empire came out the victors of a crucial tie-breaker in group A on Thursday, defeating VP to earn their spot in the winner’s bracket. During press day the team was in high spirits, unable to contain their delight at their performance the day before. We spoke to Empire’s team captain ua Roman ‘Resolut1on’ Fominok about the groupstage, Techies, the TI meta and his own meme.

In an unexpected turn of events both of TI4’s grand finalists, Vici Gaming and Newbee found themselves out of the top 4 of Group B, and could now face early elimination in the very unforgiving best-of-1 opening lower-bracket matches at the main event.

Tobi «TobiWan» Dawson will once again be gracing the Grand Finals of TI5 this year, and the Australian sat down with HotBid to talk his return to hype, how listening to ODPixel has helped him try new things and his thoughts on why an East versus West finale would be the ideal end to the tournament.

The last group stage day at The International 5 is crucial for most of the teams as at the end of it lower and upper brackets will be determined and the best of one game to decide your TI journey from lower bracket is an extremely scary thing to face.